Weigh-In Wednesday #7

Lucky number Se7en.

Obviously my black cat, Cobweb, who crosses my path all the time,  the spider I squished on the kitchen floor on Thursday, and the ladder I walked under on purpose had no effect on WIW this week...except that it is raining right now.  Damn that spider!  Though, that was probably because I forgot my umbrella today....sorry I made it rain, Victoria.  Murphy's Law.

Mama Spitfyre's House of Voodoo - our elixirs really work!

This week I'm down 4.2 pounds!  That's a grand total of 31.1 pounds lost and just a hair over 10% of my body gone!  I guess I had some good ju-ju stored up somewhere. 


Starting weight:  292.1

1st weigh-in:  286.8

2nd weigh-in:  280.1

3rd weigh-in:  276.4

4th weigh-in:  274.1 

5th weigh-in:  270.6

6th weigh-in:  266.2

7th weigh-in:  262

As Lafayette Reynolds would say:  "Well you go ahead on, hooker, with your badass. Good for you."

su·per·sti·tion: a notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary

I have this notion that food is my enemy and should be handled with extreme caution...I am a food addict after all.  Before I started this challenge, I ate a plethora of the unhealthy with "emotional reckless abandon" and now I am nearly too particular with what I put in my body.  The very thought of relinquishing some control and allowing someone else to do the cooking or going to a restaurant scares the bejezus out of me.  But, that is real life.  And, I can't live my life in fear, now can I?  So this past week, I took Eleanor Roosevelt's advice, and I did a couple things that spooked me:

1. I allowed someone else to cook a meal in which I indulged (Thanks Michelle, it was delicious xox)
2. I ate the full allotment of my calories for the week

What?  Why have I been choosing to ignore the experts for so long?  Both my trainer and my dietitian have been on my case about eating the right things in the right amounts at the right times, yet my brain was still stuck in eat less, lose more mode.  Well, no longer...down 4.2 pounds and eating more food?  Haha...I'd say that is superstition debunked!

 

Jonathan and Heather...do do that voodoo that you do so well.

 

Voodoo Museum, New Orleans, Louisiana

Mirror, mirror on the wall...

...who's the fairest of them all?

While I am almost positive that I look like a complete idiot when I'm working out (is that the reason my ninja sometimes smiles and won't tell me why...and why he makes me do things in front of the mirror?  Quite possibly)...but there are people at the gym who decidedly don't.  Would it be weird for me to go up and congratulate them?  Because that's exactly what I want to do.  I want to honour their dedication to fitness, their determination to make exercise a part of their daily routine, and celebrate their commitment to taking care of themselves.  They need to know that they look stunning in spandex bouncing around in the aerobics class, running on the treadmill, or flexing in the the weight room, don't they?
 

My propensity for words often leads me into conversation with perfect strangers, but I haven't complimented anyone on their physique yet.  I'm still trying to figure out how to look at myself in the mirror without averting my eyes.  Seriously.  I have lost close to 30 pounds, and it's probably harder for me to accept the way I look now than 30 pounds ago.  Maybe, it's because I'm in the gym doing things that I never thought I would be doing in front of those mirrors.  I have nothing to hide behind, and I'm wearing stretchy, sweaty clothing.  Today, I was asked to look at my snatch in the mirror (get your mind out of the gutter..it's a weightlifting thing) and I looked straight ahead to make sure that I was in the correct position and then I looked up, so I wouldn't have to see my reflection.  Maybe this is something I need to discuss with my mental coach.

Evil Queen face C/O Venomous Villains

I guess it has something to do with the fact that I've made drastic changes in my life that are affecting my frame, but the changes are subtle to anyone other than me.  I can fit into the jeans that I already own, but I haven't quite gone down into a smaller size.  I have dents were my waist is forming, but I'm still not comfy wearing a shirt with too much structure lest it show off my belly.  My rational side says, "you're doing great...keep it up, you've made progress."  And, my self-conscious teenage-girl side says, "you still look gross."  There's also a voice inside my head that tells me that I'm a supermodel when I put my hands on my hips and stomp on the treadmill...so maybe I shouldn't listen to the voices.  

Times Colonist Health Challenge: Meet Steve!

Steven Holub shakes off sedentary life and fast food

Sandra McCulloch / Times Colonist
February 27, 2013

Steve Holub, who is participating in the Times Colonist Health Challenge, works out at Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence in Saanich.  Photograph by: ADRIAN LAM, Times Colonist

The Times Colonist Health Challenge is giving Steven Holub a much-needed boost.

Coming into the challenge he weighed 244 pounds, the excess bulk a result of a sedentary lifestyle and too much fast food.

The friends he hung around with in high school found partners and some are starting families.

Holub, 26, didn’t make an effort to find new friends. He currently lives with his parents and is unemployed.

He has overcome the confidence issues that haunted him over the first week or two of workouts. This week, Holub was looking every bit the serious athlete as he lifted weights at the Pacific Institute for Sport Excellence on Interurban Road in Saanich.

Sweat poured off his forehead as he breathed in rhythm with the exertion.

He said afterward that the workout “was easier than last week but it’s still challenging. I really like it.”

He’s feeling a variety of benefits from the workouts after just a few weeks.

Holub said he has more energy, his confidence has improved and he’s eating better. He’s even looking forward to getting involved in other activities he once enjoyed, such as basketball.

This positive outlook has Holub grinning. And the fact he’s lost six pounds in just a few weeks is icing on the cake.

Having a personal trainer like Lindsay Forget on hand seems to be just what Holub needed to get moving down the right path.

“I think just having someone watching makes you want to work out harder,” Holub said.

Forget is also able to correct his form and keep track of his progress. It’s great having someone in your corner, he said.

Holub was born in Regina and adopted as an infant by a couple from Victoria. He has reconnected with his biological father, even lived with him for a while, and is in touch with his father’s other children.

Being adopted can raise issues of rejection. Holub said his birth father was able to answer some of the lingering questions. He hasn’t been able to get in touch with his birth mother yet.

One day, Holub said, he hopes to understand why she decided to place him for adoption. He said he is very grateful to have been chosen by a loving couple who raised him in Victoria, calling his parents “wonderful.” Being able to live at home while he sorts out his employment options “is a big blessing,” he said.

He hopes in April to move out and share a place with a friend. He’s looking at getting trained in janitorial work, just to get a paycheque to pay for his new passion: personal training at PISE.

“I’m really excited and looking forward to continuing with workouts after I’ve seen the results every week, and the way I’m feeling mentally and physically,” Holub said. “I’ve always wanted to get in shape but I wasn’t able to do it on my own. I didn’t have the maturity to really be dedicated to it as I am now.”

He’s now eager to shoot a few hoops on days he’s not working out, and maybe make new friends.

“Now I actually want to hang out with people and not be isolated,” he said.

The boost of endorphins that follows a tough workout is an awesome feeling, he added: “It’s like being high, but it’s natural.”

The Times Colonist Health Challenge is a 12-week fitness program where Holub and five others take part in twice-weekly workouts with personal trainers, advice from nutritionists, financial advisers and mental coaches.

The challenge wraps up on April 14 at PISE.

smcculloch@timescolonist.com

© Copyright 2013

Weigh-In Wednesday #6

Can it be that I am half-way done this challenge?  Well, yes...this is my 6th week of eating right, exercising, and on Wednesdays...weighing-in.  It seems like a hundred years ago now that I was trying to get over my fear of falling off the elliptical and trying to figure out how to make it up a flight of stairs without being desperately out of breath.  I'm proud to say that I have accomplished both those things, and have graduated to confidence on an inclined treadmill and push-ups ON stairs.  I still harbour a certain amount of fear when it comes to the staircase. 

    Suzie :  This is scary, like if my arms give out I'll curb-stomp myself.
    JC:  Then hold yourself up.
    Suzie:  Point taken.

So after a workout yesterday that consisted of  treadmill stomping for warm up and step-ups with weights.  Really?  They are hard enough as it is...do we really need to add weights?  Affirmative.  And as a special bonus, I got a "You are doing so much better than I thought you would be" out of Jonathan.  Yes!  Ninja is pleased.  Then on to squats and stretchy band pulls and push-ups.  Add some elliptical to get my heart rate up, up, up...and back to the mat to do these weird leg and arm lift and holds, reverse plank things with one leg up (which is a miracle that I could actually do them because I wasn't able to do them when I was prescribed core and balance exercises by my physiotherapist after my ankle sprain).  Can it be that I have actually developed some core muscles?  Squeeeee!  Then the giant ball comes out as do the reverse plank bench presses and something the other way that I will just call "here comes my breakfast" leg lifts...and then 40 sit-ups.  And just before I died, I stomped the treadmill for 50 minutes because Jonathan suggested I do it for 10 which he quickly switched to 20....and it was LAST CHANCE WORKOUT after all.

And was it worth it?  Yes sirrreeeeeee!

Starting weight:  292.1

1st weigh-in:  286.8

2nd weigh-in:  280.1

3rd weigh-in:  276.4

4th weigh-in:  274.1 

5th weigh-in:  270.6

6th weigh-in:  266.2

Weigh-in Wednesday, you saucy minx, thank you for rewarding me for all of my efforts.  That's down a grand total of 25.9 pounds - 8.9% of my original body weight in gone, gone, gone.

That's a whole lotta butter.

The oracle Delfine speaks...

She is wise beyond her years, she is well-read and highly educated, she is a beautiful soul, a blonde bombshell, she's bilingual, blithesome...and she's one of my very best friends.  

I met Del, like the computer not the phone company, many moons ago at a rather large downtown bookstore in Montréal.  We were both working the cash desk at the time, and I was having some sort of trouble explaining something in French to a customer, she jumped in.  "Wow, your French is immaculate," I told her.  She then revealed, "That's because I am French."  To this day, there are only a couple of words that she says in which I can hear an accent.

Suzie & Del...right before our midnight feed on Halloween near Frenchman St..

Del is not only an amazing friend who will traipse all the way to New Orleans to join her buddies for a holiday, but she is also an inspiration for those of us who are a bit bigger boned.

A few years ago, after her July vacation she decided to embrace healthier eating habits.  Del, as I knew her, was never a skinny mini but she was never fat.  She had a bubble butt and a great set of tatas - a very nice hourglass figure if you ask me.  At 5'1" she was pleasantly plump, she ate fries and had drinks when we met up, she wasn't a compulsive over-eater like me.  But, something made her reassess her food pattern in 2009.  In January of 2010 she started walking home from work, just walking home.  The journey is 5 kilometres - it is a pretty good hike.  When she started, it took her an hour or so, and now it takes her about 35 minutes.  In 2012, Delfine incorporated 3 to 4 yoga classes per week into her routine.  This astonishing woman has transformed her body.  When we visited in 2011, the fruits of her labour were already showing.  She looked fantastic...she appeared to be an entirely different person, in fact.  The blonde hair helped, Del had always been a brunette.  But, her bod was amazeballs.  The girl brought 5 pairs of tall boots with her to Tofino, for frak's sake! 

When we met up in New Orleans a year later, she looked toned, fit, and fabulous.  And, upon learning about my new quest for fitness and my tribulations with weigh-ins...she gave me this advice (okay it was borrowed from her yoga instructor):

"People put too much importance on what they look like, when it should be all about how they feel.  In a garden, the tulip isn't jealous of how the rose looks, and the rose doesn't want to look more like a daffodil."

Namaste yogini Delfine, namaste.  This is so true.  When you exercise and eat right, you feel amazing...and the results, well...they come with...but we have got to stop comparing ourselves to others.  Take what you have and maximize.  I like to think that I have always thought this way, but it's always good to be reminded.

Anyway, I firmly believe that I am a Bird of Paradise.  One big-ass flower with attitude.  Fairly expensive, sometimes unavailable, unparalleled in its uniqueness, rather spiky, but also delicate when in full bloom, and if incorporated in the right bouquet...utterly charismatic.  

Delfine, thank you for being a posy in my vase.  I love you.

"All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking" - Friedrich Nietzsche. Let's hope, eh?

Of all the different exercises that I have tried in the last 5 weeks, it's entirely ironic that the one that I am most challenged with is...wait for it...walking.  

Me and my ankularly challenged friends in NOLA.

Having said that, I did sprain my ankle this past autumn while in New Orleans simply by walking to breakfast down a cobbled street.  And, on Stéphane and my 5th anniversary I suffered a wobble on a deceptively flat section of flooring which turned me ass-over-teakettle in the middle of the restaurant.  Instead of my shoe breaking, my bone did.  Not only do I regard walking with a certain degree of skepticism, but it is obviously downright dangerous for me!

Five weeks ago, I could hardly stomp out 20 minutes on the treadmill at zero incline...yesterday, I walked the continuous runway for 50 minutes at a 5% gradient.  This is due in part to my joining the Crystal Fools...the Crystal Pool & Fitness Centre's Run/Walk Clinic for the Times Colonist 10K.  Yes, you read that correctly.  I was invited by Douglas Anderson to participate, and 3 weeks ago I went to my first session.  Eventually, I will run...for now, I'm walking.

They had already been training for 3 weeks when I arrived one Wednesday night, Doug welcomed me into the fray by introducing me and getting me to talk about the Health Challenge a little bit.  Why am I here?  Everybody looks like a runner, from the technical shirts and spandex to the fancy sneakers and clip lights.  I am dressed in some stretchy pants and a cotton sweatshirt.  I look like I'm off to an early class at uni having put on the freshman 15 x 8.  Before we head outside, a running physiotherapist gives us a quick talk about proper running technique.  I had no idea it was such a science.  I appreciated the efficiency component to the lecture, apparently I swing my everything a bit too much.

The walking group is the smallest of the running tiers...just 3 including me plus our group leader.  Everyone warms up on the basketball courts outside and then we're on our way.  Our 45 minute walk will take us from the Crystal Pool to just across the Blue Bridge and back.  Hang on a tick, it takes me about 30 minutes to get home from the gym...how fast will we be walking?  Fast.  Very fast, for me anyway.  We head out at quite the clip and I am informed that this is the easy pace - there's easy, moderate, and fast.  I, obviously, need to do some homework on the treadmill.

If I don't have "truly great thoughts" my new glasses will make me look smarter.

I am definitely slow compared to these ladies, they are a-motoring!  We reach Store Street and they are on to fast intervals, they walk on ahead and then switchback.  I am just trying to keep up, no doubling back for me.  We head to the bridge and it's up, so we don't get to cross, but we do get to take a stroll down Government Street.  This is fun.  I'm not so out of breath that I can't talk, but I can feel it in my legs and lungs.  Deep breaths, keep your arms moving at your sides...thumbs up.  

It's just that the rest is uphill.  I was fine on Government Street and past Chinatown, but I had no idea how much I would feel Caledonia to Quadra in my calves.  But, I did it.  I finished the walk, and I was rewarded with orange slices - how Grade 11 Field Hockey half time is that?  I love it, exercise with a dash of nostalgia.  Everyone in the 10K clinic signed a programme for me with words of encouragement and sent me on my way.  

Am I coming back next week?  
You betcha.

per·se·ver·ance 

[pur-suh-veer-uhns]

noun

1.

steady persistence in a course of action, a purpose, a state, etc., especially in spite of difficulties, obstacles, or discouragement.

Elevenses, Luncheon, and Tea...oh my!

Not only do I look like a Hobbit, short and round with a mop of curly hair, but my new eating regimen is reminiscent of THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING:
 

Aragorn: Gentlemen, we do not stop 'til nightfall.
Pippin: What about breakfast?
Aragorn: You've already had it.
Pippin: We've had one, yes. What about second breakfast?
Merry: I don't think he knows about second breakfast, Pip.
Pippin: What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper? He knows about them, doesn't he?
Merry: I wouldn't count on it.  

Three days a week I eat breakfast, go to the gym and do some cardio, then I eat a snack at "recess" while trying to figure out something clever to say on the blog.  I can write for hours and frequently do in the lobby of the Crystal Pool & Fitness Centre (come say hi), during this time I will eat again before walking home.  When I'm at home, I have some sort of snack before I figure out dinner.  Then when Stéphane comes home, we eat some supper, let it settle and then go back to the gym for workout number 2.  I try and have a little something after the gym...a piece of fruit or a yogourt perhaps.  And that is eating 6 times a day...I had no idea when I started this that I would be force feeding myself all day.  Haha...I'm not even that hungry half the time.  The rest of the week, I do the same...though I have a different workout schedule.

Well, if this is what I need to do to lose the Hobbit and gain the Elf...I gotta do what I gotta do.